Schools super seeks 3.5 percent budget increase

Updated 10:46 pm, Tuesday, January 17, 2012

STAMFORD -- Interim schools Superintendent Winifred Hamilton unveiled a $237.3 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year that maintains current staffing levels and adds programs, including foreign language studies for elementary students.

The 2012-13 budget represents a nearly 3.5 percent increase over the current year, which Hamilton noted was the second lowest hike over the past 10 years. Hamilton said the budget request reflects nearly $2.5 million in savings gained through renegotiated vendor contracts and implementing recommendations of a special education task force.

"I wish the headline would be that $2.4 million is the reduction, or efficiencies that we have been able to find through very, very hard work on behalf of the central office staff," Hamilton said during an afternoon news conference. "And in this whole $2.4 million reduction, no one lost their job."

More than 95 percent of the budget is based on fixed costs and contractual obligations, such as salaries, benefits, transportation and utilities, Hamilton said.

School board members will start delving into the specifics of Hamilton's budget on Thursday, and residents are scheduled to have a say at a public hearing at Westover Elementary School on Feb. 2.

Last year, then-Superintendent of Schools Joshua Starr requested a 3.86 percent increase for a budget that included significant cuts in special education. This year's proposed savings will not affect special education services, Hamilton said repeatedly. Many of the efficiencies were found through rescheduling the time of hourly workers to find a more efficient service schedule.

"It was the adult we moved around; not changing the child, but changing the way we were servicing the child," she said.

The budget includes plans for additional services the district has not yet seen, such as introducing a world language program to the city's elementary schools. The program, which Hamilton said she hopes would be rolled out to one grade next year and fully serve the elementary schools within five years, would cost the district about $293,000 for staff and supplies. Hamilton said she is not quite certain what the program would look like, and would rely on input from faculty and staff as well as the community to build a program that makes Stamford happy.

"I see it as one language, and what that language is, I don't know yet. I think that again is (up to) our world language program director and I think definitely our teachers, parents and administrators," she said. "An awful lot of our neighboring (districts) have Spanish as the language, and there's one that has Spanish and Mandarin."

Hamilton also asked for $64,000 to add a health teacher who would service elementary and middle schools across the district to assist school-based teachers in class coverage of health programs. Health education is mandated by the state for kindergarten through 12th-grade students, but Stamford does not yet have programs in the elementary and middle schools.

In addition to those new programs, Hamilton's budget proposal includes requests for grant funding to cover three other new initiatives: a $40,000 request for a summer school program for students entering kindergarten and first grade, which Hamilton said would increase school readiness and provide early interventions; a $64,000 request for a student-support services position at Rogers International School; and a roughly $12,000 request to fund summer planning to investigate how to bring more outplaced special education students back to the district.

"There's a lot of pluses in here," said school board Vice Chairman Jerry Pia, who also heads the board's fiscal committee. "All new initiatives, I appreciate, and I think it was a great way to start the budget season."

Democrat Julia Wade praised Hamilton's work in turning in a conservative budget that does not cut services.

"I really appreciate all your hard work, and I know it's painful to try and deliver increased services in that `less is more' concept that's become so American," Wade said.

Staff writer Maggie Gordon can be reached at maggie.gordon@scni.com or 203-964-2229.